Yowzah Oneshot Collection (3)

119(G)

take him and cut him out in little stars

       mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)

It takes her a while to figure out that even trapped inside the data core; she can still escape, using the TARDIS as a link. In a way, it’s almost like Stormcage, except she doesn’t keep coming back of her own free will. She comes back because she has no choice – she is an echo now and the outside world will only sustain her for so long. But when she does escape, there is only one place she wants to be. She cannot leave him, not even in death.

The first time she materializes unseen in the TARDIS, it’s in the library. Slouched in a plush armchair, older and sadder than she’s ever seen him, is her Doctor, Amy’s reading glasses perched on his nose and a book open in his lap. River snorts and mutters, “From one library into another. I think books are my destiny, sweetie.”

The Doctor visibly flinches, fingers tightening around his book and his eyes drifting somewhere near her feet.

River freezes in place, staring at him cautiously. “Doctor? Can you hear me?”

His eyes slide back to his book and he blinks rapidly at the words on the page, jaw tightening as he slouches further in his seat. He doesn’t spare her another glance and River sighs quietly, stuffing down the hope she refuses to admit she’d ever felt. “Of course not.” Slowly, she walks around to the back of his chair and leans over, her hair brushing his neck as she reads over his shoulder. It’s a book he’s read before, more than once, and River purses her lips, mouth by his ear. “You always come back to your favorites, don’t you?”

He exhales shakily, the book in his hands trembling.

“So where does that leave me?”

-

Some days, she stays in the data core, living out her afterlife in fiction and history, pretending there is nowhere else she’d rather be. These are days when being at his side and having him look somewhere just over her shoulder instead of at her is too much to handle. Some days, it hurts more than others. But those days she is just biding her time – she always comes back.

She follows the Doctor around like his own personal phantom, haunting his footsteps. She offers cheeky commentary when he gets himself into trouble, rolls her eyes when he loses the TARDIS, and sits in the empty chair across from him when he goes to their favorite café in Paris, watching him order her coffee just the way she likes it and place it in front of her like she’s really there. She is and she wishes there was a way to tell him that. He sips his coffee while staring at her untouched cup. River slides her hand across the table until her fingers almost touch his, unable to bear the thought of moving that extra inch and feeling her hand slip through his.

But her favorite pastime is sitting with him while he tinkers beneath the TARDIS console. It’s one of the few times he stays still and River likes to sit at his feet and watch his brow furrow as he concentrates. She talks to him – about what life is like in the data core, about how much she misses his touch, and sometimes, she reminisces about the happier times in their marriage. Mostly, she scolds him for not visiting – she’s always doing all the work in their relationship.

“I know you hate goodbyes, but there is such a thing as closure, honey,” she says, and watches his grip tighten on the wrench in his hand. “It might help you move on.”